My Partner
by IHKF
Summary: A mission gone wrong leave Damian pumped with an experimental drug that's half fear toxin and half truth serum... or something like that. Bruce resorts to seeking Jon's help in returning his son to his normal self.


He wasn't sure what happened; he'd blocked out the noise the moment the freaking Batman showed up at the little Kent Family home looking… not like Batman. He'd heard what he needed to hear.

There was an accident. Patrol went wrong. _Damian was captured, hurt._ He was despondent, awake but not alive and not limp but little more than a doll. Something about mind-control. Something about modified fear gas or something, but Jon had blocked all of that out. Batman was there because nothing had worked.

They'd noticed something was wrong when Damian woke up, 3am, wiping his eyes even though the glassy glaze stuck. Alfred and Dick had been right there, asking him how he felt, if he remembered anything. Damian would have raged around for hours after his failure, lamented to Titus and the cat about how the Son of Batman shouldn't have been knocked unconscious, shouldn't have been stripped of his utility belt or shot up with fear gas; the Damian that woke up that morning only recited what he remembered calmly. It was odd, but Dick decided to give him space, and Alfred offered him something small to soothe his stomach. Toast and beans. Damian- the spoiled brat who thought the world was supposed to bend to his will, the jerk who tried to fight Superman's super son with his bare hands- he'd looked Alfred dead in the eye and said "Please don't waste the food. I am unfit to receive anything more from Father."

Bruce couldn't get through to him, said talking to Damian in this state was like banging on aquarium glass and praying the fish could hear him talking. Damian, the Damian they all knew (and cared about and worried about and _loved_), he was lost somewhere in a sea so thick he couldn't see the hands reaching out to him. Bruce had come to the Kent residence looking for help, and Batman didn't really do that. So Jon knew why he was there, that he was desperate enough to fall to a last resort; Jon was flying at top speed to the Wayne Residence before Bruce could say what they both knew- _Damian needed him_.

He wasn't sure how everybody in the family managed to squeeze into the hallway outside Damian's bedroom door. It made the walls look thinner and the air seem thicker, or maybe that was just him. Dick and Tim nodded at him, but that was all the greeting he got. They looked pensive, Tim more-so than Dick as Stephanie wrapped an arm around Barbara's shoulders and tugged her away from the door. Blue eyes looked at him, concern etched across their faces, and he had to wonder if he could do what none of them could- but he shook his head and braced himself because he had to. There was no room for failure. He winced, because the voice in his head sounded a lot like Damian.

He pressed the door open, and Alfred swept the air with his slow-aging hands to shoo the crowd away from the door.

Damian was sitting at the side of his bed, legs dangling listlessly over the edge. His hands sat folded in his lap, poised and perfect, the way a kid like him would pose for a painting, the kind that hung over a mantle. Jon shuffled uncomfortably, feeling like he was more in line to take a school picture. It was just as Bruce had described. Damian's eyes were glazed over and empty, as if he was merely staring off into space, thinking about something unpleasant. It wasn't the usual grimace Jon oft remembered when red and black would stray across his mind's eye. He watched Damian's lips to see if they moved, but they stayed thin, and shut, and still. He glanced at the made bed, to the covers creased only where Alfred had probably sat his youngest master after changing the sheets- Damian had tossed and turned in his sleep, left sweat matting into the covers.

Jon cleared his throat. "Hey, uh, Damian." Damian didn't respond, so Jon continued. "Uh, your family is really worried about you, ya know."

"I doubt it."

His heart jumped and pounded like one heavy fist against his ribcage, but settled into his stomach after. "Doubt that they're worried?"

"There's no reason to be." His voice trailed off, and Jon felt the absence of his attitude nipping at him as the words faded in the air, stretched so thin that he rubbed absently at his arm. Damian stared straight ahead still, so motionless Jon could hardly hear him breathing, even with his kryptonian ears. "I am… not worth fretting over."

Fear gas was supposed to bring out your worst fears, supposed to take the things you had nightmares about, the ones that made little kids climb into bed with their parents and you wake up screaming in a sweat so cold the AC felt like ice coating in layers on your skin. It didn't do this, not from what Damian had told him. It didn't make you voice every internalized flaw, and it shouldn't have taken the confident, eager Robin that was his partner and make him a martrying shell. No, not his Robin. Jon pressed one hand to the bed, beside Damian, then paused. Damian didn't say anything, didn't move, didn't look at him, so he took a seat and let their legs brush. "What do you mean?"

Damian blinked, but Jon didn't catch anything else. "I have proved myself incompetent both as an heir to the Al Ghul legacy and as an heir to the Batman. My father has a great many wards to which he may pass his legacy, and my mother is more than capable of producing a child that will not disappoint her. I am excess. I am frivolous, and I should be handled accordingly."

"Handled accordingly? You mean, like…?" Jon mimed a line across his throat with a finger. That would have usually earned a scoff from Damian, but the response was little more than:

"Yes. I am already a nuisance to be dealt with. I would not wish to fail my father or grandfather any more than I already have."

Jon grimaced and looked down at his hands, mirroring Damian's clean fold with a messy, finger-twisting image. He grinded his teeth. "Is that all there is, then? Being an heir to your parents?"

Damian was silent, but Jon could hear a faint skip in his chest- at least, he was pretty sure that was Damian's chest. It might have been his own. Cold and empty green eyes fluttered, but there wasn't life there yet, not the bursting, narcissistic, fire-filled life he'd known, anyway. "I exist solely to be a weapon, and I have failed. For that, the punishment is death."

"You're not just a weapon, though! You're-" He whipped around to Damian, didn't care that he wasn't looking at him. "You're a brother! To Dick! And to Tim and Jason and- and me!" He winced. No, no that wasn't quite right. Damian, _God_, Damian was dear to him, but not the way Kon was, not the way Damian was dear to every single previous Robin. He slid off the bed, kneeled in front of Damian on the floor and prayed that he'd hear that stupid mocking noise, hoped Damian would find the humor in Jon dropping to his knees like he was proposing. He didn't hear so much as a huff.

"You're more than that. You're more than a weapon, Damian! That's not what you are to your family. It's not- it's not what you are to me!" Fool's errand. This was probably a fool's errand, but then again this might have been a fool's wish, and Damian could call him a fool all he wanted later, just please, _please_, something had to work. He took Damian's hands in his own, squeezed them, pulled them to his chest where he kneeled and looked Damian in his glazed eyes. "You're forgetting about me, Damian! You're forgetting that you're my partner! It's not just Damian the Assassin or Batman and Robin anymore! Even if you got rid of all of that, we'd still be Robin and Superboy, wouldn't we?" Damian's eyes fluttered again, eyebrows bunching together above his nose. Jon continued on. "You might wanna die because of failing everyone else, but you've never failed at being my best friend, Damian."

There was silence, dead, heavy, like a body dropped over his, like weight he couldn't hold in his chest. Damian said nothing, didn't move. Jon looked into green eyes that were once like emeralds and saw only the smaug of a destroyed forest, and felt his own well with tears. He dropped his head to Damian's knees and cried, silently, between his grinding teeth. He hadn't been enough. Damian, the one he knew like the back of his hand, was lost somewhere in that haze and _dammit_ please let this be a drug that Batman hadn't detected, let it be temporary, let it be a bad guy possessing his best friend, anything at all. Please. _Just give Damian back._

"J...Jon?" He sniffed and nodded into Damian's now-soaking lap. "I'd appreciate it if you would cease slobbering all over my pants. These are designer, I'll have you know."

Jon shot up, close enough that the back of his head nearly made contact with Damian's chin, close enough that their noses brushes together when Damian skillfully avoided that collision. His nose wrinkled in disgust at the sight of his very wet-nosed kryptonian. "What?"

Jon ignored the demanding tone, instead launching into Damian with such force that they both fell back onto his bed. His arms snaked around Damian's neck and securely latched onto each other while Jon took to burying his nose into the crook of Damian's neck. "Wh-wha-! Hey! Get off!"

"Not a chance!"

"I mean it!"

"Good luck breaking out of my arms with that kryptonite you totally don't have on you right now!"

"Which is- where is my belt? What happened?"

Jon sat up enough that he could see Damian's eyes, once again full of that green loud energy that he'd started to miss so badly that it physically hurt him. He let his nose brush against Damian's again, ignored the heated red clouding like a rash at his cheeks, but reveled in the red of Damian's. "Your dad'll explain." He smirked and nuzzled into Damian's cheek, taking in the smell of expensive detergent and the warmth that seemed to envelop him the longer he laid in Damian's arms. "But not before I'm done squeezing the angst out of you."

"-tt- Good luck."

Even as he said that, Damian's arms found their own way around Jon's frame and squeezed, like he found comfort in this, like he wanted this embrace just as much… not that either of them were going to admit to that for a long time.


End file.
